


Princess of a never-ending tale

by Florchis



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, I Don't Even Know, POV Leo Fitz, Reunions, Scientist Jemma, Writer Fitz, but like a small tiny step on the romantic side, this is definitely on the romantic side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 09:51:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10435083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/pseuds/Florchis
Summary: When after ten years of lukewarm friendship Fitz publishes a young-adult book about Jemma's adventures on another planet, he kind of was expecting her to come banging on his door.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title and opener from "Amiga mia" by Alejandro Sanz. Because why not. I don't even know what this it. It just came to me while I was cooking listening to that song and instead of letting it go, I wrote it.

**_Pero, perdona, amiga mía, no es inteligencia ni sabiduría. Esta es mi manera de decir las cosas: no es que sea mi trabajo, es que es mi idioma._ **

_But forgive me, my friend, it’s not intelligence nor wisdom. This is how I tell things: it’s not my job, it is my language._

* * *

It’s not that Fitz wasn’t expecting her, it’s just than when you have been expecting someone for ten years, you sort of stop actively expecting and the wait becomes a second skin.

It’s not that they haven’t had contact for ten years: they talk occasionally on the phone, they like each other’s photos on facebook, they even arrange to grab a cup of tea together if they are in the same city at the same time. But this, Jemma almost bringing down his door with her insistent knocks unannounced, _this_ hasn’t happened in a long time, and that’s what he was waiting for, for their friendship to be restored.

(Why they having an amicable relationship wasn’t friendship, and she entering his house with ragged breathing and her hands in fists is? Fitz can’t explain it, it’s just what they are, what they have been and- he hopes- what they always will be.)

He plays it cool, like he knew she was coming or like he doesn’t care.

“Tea?” She looks driven, but not angry, and she nods. “How do you want it?”

“I can’t believe you don’t remember.”

He remembers. Of course he remembers. He is not going to tell her that,

“I didn’t want to assume.” And he turns around and makes two mugs of tea without receiving further instructions.

When he comes back, she has made herself at home on his couch, and he feels a pang of longing at her looking comfy on his home at night.

“I assume you imagined I was coming.”

“Of course.”

“I mean, after all, you just got published. With a book that is about me.”

“I did.”

Fitz has imagined this scene a thousand times on his head. Jemma’s reactions depends mostly on his mood at the moment of the fantasy: delightful if he is feeling worn out, angry if he is feeling pessimistic, disgusted if he is feeling anxious. But not even once he had imagined her being so calm and collected, almost on the verge of indifference. He can’t describe exactly what that makes him feel.

“I feel like I should ask for a cut of the profits or something.”

“You could, probably. I guess.”

“Well, I'm not going to.”

“I know.”

He is not going to ask her why she came, because he is glad she did, but he wonders.

“I mean, after all, you wrote me a masterpiece. What else could a girl ask for?”

He tries really hard not to blush at the compliment, but, after all, the thing he has wanted most since he met her fifteen years ago is her approval.

“I’m glad you liked it.”

“Yeah, of course.” She makes a pause and takes a sip from the mug she is holding with both hands, and she looks almost like the girl he once met. Almost, but not quite. “I was a little pissed that you hadn’t asked me first, but I guess it makes sense. I'm just surprised that you don't have a more prominent role on the story of my life.”

He almost tells her that he didn’t write their story because that would mean that he would have to ended it in some way, and he wasn’t ready for it, even if the end could have been happy. Also, maybe if he had written their story, that would have given closure to one or both of them, and she wouldn’t be here, in his house, and, well. Nobody wants that. So, instead:

“A girl in space makes for a good story, Jemma. There was no place for me in it.”

She hums, and he looks at her fingers, carefully curled around the mug. He has always loved her hands, larger than one would imagine and skilled, eroded, stained. Graceful, but not delicate.

“You wrote Will in a better light than what I expected, though.”

He feels like she is checking items off of a list, and he wonders which is the final goal of her investigation, what was her starting hypothesis.

“It’s not good taste in young adult literature to hate on the main character’s boyfriend, Simmons, you know that.”

He calls her by her last name, because he has made peace a long time ago with everything that happened, but if he can distance himself a little, it still helps. If he calls her Simmons while talking about one of his boyfriends, he can pretend that they are younger and he doesn’t care for anything except her well-being.

She smiles and, really, he can almost see the gears in her head gyrating at top speed, he is aching to ask what she is expecting to achieve with all this, but he won’t. Things are on an unstable equilibrium as it is for him to go disrupting them without good reason.

“I brought a copy. I thought that you could maybe sign it?”

It still pains and amazes him in similar proportions to see his book in print, to see his long streams of words in black letters in a white page, because in his mind they still are long, feverish nights or laboured works of precision instead of actual, real sentences.

“Of course.”

He hesitates with the pen in hand, because what can he say? Everything he wants to say to her have already been said or can’t be said this way, maybe not in any way. But writing just his name seems pretentious and cold.

She slides her fingers over the letters when he gives her the book back, and he is not sure if it’s reverence or sadness on her face. To mask his nerves, he takes a long gulp of his cold tea while she gets up to put the book away on the bag she left at the side of the door. When she comes back, something has changed on her expression. It feels like she has opened a void at the opening of his stomach, and he can’t tell if it is a good thing or a bad thing till he knows what she is going to use to fill it back.

“Fitz. Do you know why I came?”

She is not offering an explanation in an easy way, and of course he has assumptions, guesses, hopeful wishes, but if he only _knew,_ everything would be easier.

(Does he _want_ everything to be easier?)

He can see the way her fingers are twitching, impatient to fly to his shoulder, maybe even his cheek, and, again, he can hope, but he can’t know for sure.

He shakes his head.

“I think your book is missing a couple chapters. Maybe even a sequel. Or could it be a trilogy? How can we know for sure? And I think we have wasted enough time as it is. We should get on that as soon as possible.”

His mouth has gone dry, because he is not that dumb, but his face and his limbs don’t seem to answer to him anymore while she kneels in front of him.

“I have been told that it’s better to write from experience, do you agree?”

She hasn’t been this close to him in a very long time, and he has forgotten some of her freckles, the curve of her eyelashes, the exact shade of brown of her eyes, but he is willing to look at them till her can never forget again.

“Yes. Yes, I agree.”

* * *

_(To the science princess of this tale._

_Love, always._

_Fitz.)_


End file.
